


Epiphany

by awalkingdenial



Series: Joshler 5+1 [4]
Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, And life too that's implied, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Death, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Reincarnation, Undetermined times and places
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-04
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-10-14 22:36:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10545492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awalkingdenial/pseuds/awalkingdenial
Summary: Five times Josh meets Tyler through his lives and the one time he understands why he actually does.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is an experimentation

**_"and true love waits"_ **

 

 

**1.**

 

Hot and dry wind is blowing through the sea pines that overshadow the little polished stones of the beach. You’ve counted these trees. They’re twenty one.

 

You sit under them, looking at the crystal clear water of the sea. You’ve been given your last day before war for yourself. You’ve never liked war. You’ve never been one for it, one of those people who find their purpose in shedding blood and gaining glory while climbing on others’ corpses. 

 

Still, you can feel the pressure of not wanting to dishonor your father and family deep down in your guts; you’ve grown up to do exactly what you hate. To be not only a soldier, but the best soldier of all. 

 

You’re staring into the limitless blue of the sky and sea merging in front of you when you notice someone moving with the corner of your eye. 

 

That’s the _first_ time you see him. You know because how could you _forget._  

 

A slender boy with golden skin that shines under the rays of light. He’s strolling on the beachfront looking at his bare feet, moving one past the other, lifting sand at each step. He’s wearing a white robe.

 

When he looks up and notices you, you can’t move. You’ve found what you’ve been unconsciously looking for all your life and _you can’t search anymore_. This is the end and the beginning. 

 

He looks at you without blinking. His eyes are warm and dark, tormented in their own way, but his full lips are smiling at you. He knows you’re a soldier because of the weapons sleeping next to you on the ground.

 

You are about to say something when he speaks first. He tells you he hopes you don’t die, just to resume his walk as if nothing happened. 

 

Your heart is hammering against your ribs. Why does he have to go? Why do _you_ have to go? Until he’s near enough to hear you, you raise your voice and tell him you will be back, soon or late, and that _your soul will not be able to rest until you find him again._

 

He shoots you a look over his shoulder. The curve of his lips is sweeter than before, but his eyes are sadder.

 

When you come back home victorious what seems an eternity later but really isn’t, you don’t know what to do with your father’s approval. They tell you about a beautiful young boy who’s cut his wrist with a broken seashell the day war begun.

 

You think fate would have been gentler if you’d never known him.

 

 

**2 _._**

 

You’re combing the last horse of the stable, your favorite one. Her name’s Monsoon. She’s been through a lot in her years of life, and she still stands as the most resistant and fast mare in the duchy. 

 

You pet her head, indulging a bit more in the stable, in the place you’ve seen every day all day for some years now. You first saw it when you were a boy, and you’re now a young man.

 

You hear someone approaching, but you don’t move. It’s probably some other servant. The master doesn’t ever need racehorses this late in the evening.

 

The steps stop a few meters behind you. You roll your eyes, patting Monsoon’s head as she leans into your familiar touch. You thought work was done for the day. You turn to ask what you need to do, but the words get stuck in your throat.

 

You’re physically still standing there, but it’s not where you _feel_ you are. Hot wind blows through your hair, responsibility and a forthcoming war weigh on your shoulders like an unpleasant burden, waves are crashing against the seaside and there he is, the boy with golden skin and deep eyes.

 

It all dissolves in a blink, your soul is back in place. You feel like when you think there is another step down the stairs, but your foot unexpectedly meets solid ground, taking you aback and making you lose balance.

 

He’s wearing rich, fancy clothes, so different from yours. In this life, you two are from different worlds, worlds that do not mix up. He’s your master’s son.

From the curious yet unimpressed look he gives you you understand he doesn’t recognize you. It’s okay, you think, you’re the one who promised to find him again. 

 

He asks you for a horse, and you prepare one for him.

 

He comes back most of nights. You don’t talk much. He asks for a horse, you prepare him Monsoon. You fall in love all over again every time you see him arrive and watch him leave, cheeks flushed and eyes bright in the candlelight. 

 

One night he’s crying, and your heart breaks. It’s the twenty-first time you see him in this life. You feel an astonishing need to tell him you love him, but you can’t. You have to do something, _anything,_ so you prepare a horse for yourself too. You ride together through the cold night. 

 

You’d never seen him under the moonlight, but now that you have, it’s not something you can go back from. He smiles to you when you’re back at the stable, sun soon to light up the sky. 

 

You’re so incredibly happy you might die.

 

He hands you his reins, and you can’t be imagining the caress on the back of your hand as you take them. He tells you he can’t wait to see you again. Flowers grow through your ribs at his words.

 

That day you can’t wait for evening to come. You’re excited, anxious. You can’t stop moving, biting your lips, thinking of him, how much happier you are when he’s with you.

 

He doesn’t come. Not that night, not the following ones. Your heart is breaking in _more pieces than you thought it was made of_.

 

You get to know he was sent by his father to do his grand tour. You’d almost forgot he’s a real prince because he’s always been noble to your heart. You remember who he is and who you are now, but you can’t suffer because of it. He’s wealthy and healthy, he can afford traveling, seeing new places.

 

The tour will eventually end. He’ll be back after some years, and you’re not going anywhere. 

 

_He can’t wait to see you again._

 

You hate yourself for not being able to wait for him. Cholera is draining you of life one year later.

 

While you’re dying, the only thing on your mind is your promise, and you close your eyes with tranquillity in your misery. 

 

You’ll see him again. 

 

_You promised_.

 

 

 

**3.**

 

You can’t wait for that next bastard. He’s the one who took away your family twenty one days ago. 

 

The square is full of people just like you, and you bet that from above you all look like matches in a big pack, heads popping out as someone here and there tries to have a better view of the gibbet. 

 

You look at the sky. It’s a meaningless shade of grey, an undefined cluster of clouds heavy with rain. You’re about to get your justice, your revenge. Your loss still burns in your brain, but something, _something doesn’t feel quite right_ , you think, _something even worse is about to happen_ and you can’t avoid the grip of anxiety that makes your stomach twist.

 

Someone murmurs that he’s coming, the killer, the murderer, the demon, and you look back down and tiptoe.

 

You see the executioner rise his ax and scream. Hundreds of voices join him.

 

The condemned is walking slowly towards the platform, a guard is guiding him towards it.

 

You can foresee his naked arms. They look familiar.

 

A nightmarish haze darkens your eyes as you recognize _him._ You don’t know what shakes you more, that he’s Blurryface, the killer, the one that took away your happiness, or that it’s your soulmate, the only one that can give it back to you and he’s about to die before your eyes, or that destiny once more let you down putting you through this.

 

You elbow your way to the first row. You’re blocked from moving further by an unforgiving guard. You see him walk up the stairs. He’s so _close_.

 

They make him kneel, and he does, obedient. From his position you understand his hands are tied tight behind his back. 

 

As soon as they take the sack off his head, your heart sinks to your feet. He looks exhausted. The circles under his reddened eyes are violet and thick. His cheeks are wet with two lines of what must have been tears, one of them is cut and still bleeding. His lips are flushed and wet with saliva. 

 

They present him as a monster, which you can’t conceive he is, there must be an explanation for this cosmic, cruel joke. They explain how he killed and how many people he killed. He closes his eyes as if those words hurt him. Needless to say the speech is like gasoline to fire for the crowd. They’re all screaming now. They want him dead. Your ears hurt.

 

He opens his eyes and sees you. You’re the only one who’s crying between all those angry people. He doesn’t recognize you but you didn’t expect him to in the first place. 

 

You’re not present enough to fill the time gap between that look and him being asked his last wish. 

 

He says he wants to tell _you_ something.

 

Everyone is silent. Everyone is trying to wonder why would that be his last wish.

 

They ask you if you accept and you just nod. 

 

They guide you under the stage and wait for you right behind your back, as the executioner lets the love of your lives approach.

 

It’s not him, he whispers to you that, it’s not him. He is possessed. It’s Blurryface. He’s tried to kill himself twenty-one times before, to stop the nightmare that is his life, but he’s always been stopped by Him. He’s glad he’s dying. He just wanted you to know because he saw you cry, you’re pure enough to understand. He’s sorry. He hates himself for being the vessel of His actions. He thanks you. He says goodbye.

 

When they chop his head, no-one cheers. 

 

You look at the bloody mess. 

 

It starts to drizzle soon and you’re shaking to your bones, but it’s not because you’re cold.

 

 

**4.**

 

You would say it’s a day like any other in your university. You’re taking notes of what your Italian Literature professor is saying to kill time. You have never liked him because of his questionable teaching methods and his heavy way of imposing his beliefs and ideas to his students without letting them form their own. 

 

At some point you look up and catch someone quietly getting in. 

 

It takes you all the effort you can put to not break down right there, right in that moment. When you see _him_ , you are not remembering, you’re being given back the part of yourself you’re denied every time you get to live a new life.

 

He’s breathtakingly beautiful, just like he’s always been. It’s the fourth life of yours he’s giving a direction to but you’re still not capable of handling your emotions. 

 

He sits not too far away from you. 

 

The day after you purposefully clash against him, faking hurry at your best. Your hands are kind of shaking but it helps with your little acting. You pick up the book that fell from his hands and handle it to him. You tell him you’re sorry. He smiles and forgives you.

 

The following time you meet it’s him who approaches you. Then it’s you, then him again, him, him, you, you, him… You’ve lost count of the days you’ve spent together.

 

You’re _friends_. You walk together, go to theatre together, learn together, laugh together. 

 

One day you’re suspended in the middle of a lake, him and you in a little wooden boat. There’s a number, “21”, written on it. He looks ethereal.

 

He’s laughing at something you told him, then he clears his throat and keeps smiling. He tells you make him so happy.

 

You can’t hold it back anymore. _I love you._

 

He shakes his head. It’s a common thing, he says, for friends to love each other. 

 

You explain you love him like you love a person you would _kiss_.

 

He grows pale and you wish you were dead, because if you’ve ruined this whole thing between you with just those few words, they weren’t worth it. 

 

Your worry fades day by day. He clarifies you that he’s okay with holding your hand. He’s okay with your fingers stroking his hair. You’re okay with everything he wants or likes. 

 

You’re the richest man on Earth for being able to stay this close to him.

 

In the haze of your happiness, you forget that people who _have a lot_ , have _a lot to lose_.

 

He meets a girl. A beautiful girl, he says, the most beautiful person he’s ever seen. It is silly of you to be hurt, because you obviously could have never been that person for him.

 

He has always less and less time to spend with you. He’s leaving you behind.

 

He doesn’t invite you to his wedding. In fact, he tells you not to come. It is better if you part for good, it’s _healthier,_ he explains. He thanks you for the memories though. That he does, trying to smile too. Something that makes his features look saddened flashes in his face, but maybe it’s just you who desperately would like him to be sorry, at least a bit, for doing this. 

 

He shakes your hand like a real man, and walks away from your life. From this life.

 

You smile through your tears. You don’t tell him you’ll meet again because he isn’t supposed to know and it’s just fine like that.

 

He would not remember you anyway.

 

 

**5.**

 

Your blindness is something you have dealt with for twenty one years of your life, since you were eighteen.

 

You’re having your daily walk at the park. The smell of blossoming flowers, the voices of kids playing and singing, warm rays of sun on your skin, _life,_ it allhelps you cope with the unmoving darkness stitched to your irises. 

 

Suddenly you’re being rushed forward and lose your balance. 

 

You stumble and consequentially fall, slightly taken back. 

 

Someone touches your shoulder. The spot _burns_.

 

A faint smell of lavender and clouds invades your nostrils and you could guess who that smell came from in every life. 

 

It’s _him_.

 

He apologizes shyly. 

 

A terrifying cold freezes you in place. You reply that everything is okay. You ask him his age, hiding your request under a compliment on his strength, since he kind of took you down by running.

 

He giggles and says he’s _almost six_.

 

You nod and hide your growing nausea behind a smile. It hurts you to do so, but you suggest he goes back to his mother or father so they can check if he got hurt.

 

You can’t think of a reason why he hugs you, because you’re a stranger to him, but he does. 

 

He runs away before you’ve even hugged him back.

 

You are thirty three years older than him. 

 

What’s the purpose of all this, you ask yourself, what have you done to deserve this? Why do you keep meeting and remembering him without ever being able to _stay_ with him?

 

You’re still thinking about it when a car takes you down on the way home.

 

 

 

**+1.**

 

 

Tyler is radiating his beauty through sweaty skin, flushed cheeks and deep, dark but bright eyes. 

 

When he’s like this after a two hours show, you know you both did good. You know you both are alive. _Alive together_. 

 

In this life you’re best friends, band-mates. You could never ask for more.

 

You two are alone in the room. 

 

You aren’t expecting it when you see Tyler cry.

 

_What’s wrong, what’s wrong Ty_. Have you done something wrong? What is happening?

 

You touch his shoulder and then let your hand slide on his nape, still covered in black paint. You can do it and words can’t express how grateful you are for it.

 

Your eyes meet soon. 

 

His smile is shaky on his trembling lips, but it’s so heartfelt, so pure, so _his_ , you’re on the cusp of crying too.

 

He tells you he’s _happy_. 

 

_With you, thanks to you, for you_.

 

While you’re just two young boys crying, entangled in an unbreakable hug, a sense of comic revelation comes to you.

 

An _epiphany_.

 

That’s why you meet him. That’s why you keep meeting him. Even if even now, while he’s opening his soul to you and standing in your arms, he’s married to another person, and will probably be for the rest of this life, you know you made it.

 

You are where you are, life after life through the centuries, to try and make him _happy_.

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE JUST SAY SOMETHING WHAT DID I DO


End file.
